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Florida high school head football coach makes pro wrestling debut

IMG_8358by:Andy Villamarzo•06/29/25•

Andy_Villamarzo

Tarpon Springs High School's Jeremy Frioud
Tarpon Springs High School head football coach Jeremy Frioud makes professional wrestling debut on Saturday night; Courtesy of Tarpon Springs Football

Get you a high school head football coach who can roam the sidelines and oh yeah, is also a professional wrestler. That’s what Tarpon Springs High School has in the case of fourth-year head coach Jeremy Frioud, who made his pro wrestling debut in the Ultimate Florida Wrestling (UFW) promotion on Saturday night.

The Spongers’ head coach teamed up with one of the UFW’s wrestlers along with Tarpon Springs’ assistant principal Michael Mellinger in a tag team 3-on-3 match for a athletic fundraiser held at the school. The tag team match was the final tilt of the night for the wrestling event dubbed as Charged.

“First wrestling show in the books,” Frioud said in a video interview. “This is not fake. Thanks to everybody who came. I’m hurting. We won and defended the Sponger Nation.”

Frioud, a Tarpon Springs alum, is in his second stint as a head coach, leading St. Petersburg Northeast from 2014 to 2020, going 31-37. Now at his alma mater, Frioud led the Spongers to the Class 2A playoffs last season with a 6-5 record. Heading into his fourth season at the helm, Frioud has an overall record of 17-13.

The night started off with Frioud speaking to the crowd on hand before being interrupted and eventually beaten down by a few UFW wrestlers. It kicked off the evening in the school’s gymnasium, which saw a couple hundred in attendance for the professional wrestling debut of Frioud.

For the UFW, it was the promotion’s first-ever event and it also featured a former collegiate standout as apart of the night at Tarpon Springs High.

The event also included former UCF Knights standout offensive lineman Parker Boudreaux, who wrestled in the WWE in 2021-2022. Boudreaux, a Bishop Moore Catholic graduate, faced ‘J-Sin’, on Saturday night and ended up losing via pinfall. When Boudreaux was at UCF, the former offensive guard was apart of the Knights’ 2018 Peach Bowl winning team.